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Ask HN: So Censorship is ok in post 2021?

22 points by techsin101 6y ago

It feel like yesterday that freedom of speech was treated as one of the great traits of our culture and specifically of internet. Internet allowed you to speak your mind and find people who thought like you and escape status quo. With few extreme exceptions, you could discuss things no matter how controversial. But that is apparently no more the case... For me, it noticeably started with Youtube and Reddit. Extreme censorship in the name of copyright or 'toxicity'. Companies used to do press release if they would ban something off their platform justifying with proof. But now, say a word that may make any advertiser unhappy and get deplatformed in an instant (cue: twitch). Infact, have some figurative association with someone unpopular and get banned, for no fault of your own. So much for "I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It." And very much of the following situation... First they came for ...Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. For all the 'future' talk YC does, YC companies are sure leading censorship platforms. Both twitch and reddit ban as much as possible. Is that the future they wanted to be like? - not impartial anymore - don't care about freedom of speech, esp if it's remotely negative toward bottom line Old internet is dead, Welcome to facist family friendly lobbyists approved programming for your minds.

ev1 6y ago
Freedom of speech does not apply to private property? edit: in response to Karunamon, I understand that. But nobody is stopping you from having these discussions on your own platform. Other people do not need to or are obligated to host whatever you want to spew. Nobody is obligated to let you use their platform for free. You can have your speech, copyright infringing content, etc. somewhere on the internet and it will be accessible to the rest of the internet. Forums exist, domain registrars that are not in the US exist. I don't understand how straight theft of content (for example video game clip stealing and covering in donation links that don't benefit anyone but the SEO spammer) is considered censorship. Nobody wants that crap. It benefits nobody other than spammers and wastes server resources. > But now, say a word that may make any advertiser unhappy and get deplatformed in an instant (cue: twitch). Come on, nobody is being banned from twitch for saying Mountain Dew Game Fuel tastes like shit. PogChamp was removed because the dude spouts nonstop conspiracy theories on the validity level of 5G causing HIV. They are being banned for repeatedly and continuously spamming, ban evading and sexually harassing people (re: simp-esque stuff). > Both twitch and reddit ban as much as possible. Parler also banned as much as possible anybody that didn't agree with their viewpoints, didn't they?
- techsin101 6y ago
  point wasn't whether it's legal or not, point was upholding freedom of speech USED to be a shared goal of all players on internet.
  - ev1 6y ago
    How long ago was that? > family friendly lobbyists approved programming for your minds This has not been the case since self-hosting, home pages, tilde-accounts (~username public_html) ended quite a long time ago. No more customisation like in the earlier days - Neopets and MySpace both let you use HTML, CSS, and often helped teach kids them. For a long time past that era it's been "insert your personal information into these well defined boxes and we will ban you if you enter anything false while selling all your data to as many people as possible". The internet for over a decade now has been built to _consume_, not produce. Devil's advocate: you agreed to these terms that they can pull anything advertiser unfriendly or deemed abusive by posting your content on a third party privately-owned service; nobody is stopping you from running your own. "Oh we can't scale as much as AWS" is not a good excuse. If the Big Four don't want to touch you there are plenty that will.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - rabidrat 6y ago
    I banned people from public IRC channels on EFNet all the time. Google deplatforms SEO spam sites all the time. The internet is unusable without some kind of filter on participation.
    - Karunamon 6y ago
      Maybe that filter should be moved to the client side, where it can be bypassed or disabled if broken or abused.
      - ev1 6y ago
AirMax98 6y ago
This is flame bait.
omosubi 6y ago
i realized recently that the only websites I go to that aren't controlled by one of the tech giants are HN and the links I go to from here. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this. We're in for a wild ride once they really start clamping down on speech that doesn't meet their views. we're pretty close already
- techsin101 6y ago
  there used to forums and hosting providers used to be very off hands, and media didn't understand internet back then.
lnsru 6y ago
Censorship was always around us. Being born in Soviet Union I was always taught not to talk about particular topics. Mostly politics and religion. Sexual orientation was also not to speak about. I went to Western Germany and it’s the same - a good tone requires not to talk about particular topics. At work absolutely the same - big Corp has code of conduct and there is clearly written what I can’t say. Freedom of speech lives in a small circle of friends where I can say everything I want.
shripadk 6y ago
Censorship is going to be the future. As long as Big Tech is dominated by leftist culture you'll have censorship. No two ways about it. Ideological censorship has been going on for years now. It just has reached its peak and has now become acceptable. I mean we readily accepted surveillance haven't we? Censorship is no big deal. We'll live with it too. We are happy being conditioned and looked after. There is no scope for individual thought anymore. Either you are with the group or you aren't. Internet was an escape for me during the 90s and early 2000s. Not anymore. Now it is the same bullshit that we find in the real world. That distinction between virtual and real life has melted away. Anything you say online has repercussions offline and anything you do offline has repercussions online. The Golden Era of Internet as we knew it is over.
onion2k 6y ago
Companies frequently dropped some of the more extreme usenet groups back in the early days of the internet. AOL would block the use of certain keywords in their directory. Search engines have always dropped sites from their SERPs. This is not so new.
shripadk 6y ago
Your post was flagged within half an hour of being up. I think you got your answer. Do you need any more proof to where we are headed?
- techsin101 6y ago
  oh wow, just great!.. was it because i dared to criticized YC? hope I'll not get a visit!
  - ryan-allen 6y ago
    I think the recent mass de-platforming is a knee-jerk reaction to the Capitol riots. There are so many problems that need solving 2021 and beyond in order to maintain and civil and fair society. I don't believe it's going to be the platforms to lead the charge, it's going to have to come from lawmakers. When you can't tell the difference between a right wing US citizen and a Russian intelligence operative on an anonymous internet forum, there is a big problem. When media is able to distribute blatant lies and get away with it (and when the media is so heavily concentrated) there is a problem. When a certain political demographic can silence individuals with no oversight, there is a problem. There are lots of problems and it's going to be hard to solve them, but we should try.
    - shripadk 6y ago
      > a Russian intelligence operative Imagine if there was no "Russian Intelligence Operative" and it was right wing Americans all along. I'm sure Putin will be mighty pleased that he is being given so much credit for having destabilized a Superpower by doing literally nothing. Can you imagine the ego boost he would be getting out of it? If there is a way to self-destruct Americans have for sure found a way to do it. Irrational fears about Russians meddling in elections while saying in the same breath that mail-in ballots cannot be subject to fraud. Do you see how disconnected both arguments are? On one hand you say a foreign adversary can easily influence your election but in the same breath you say domestic actors cannot influence elections. Either your elections are so weak that they can be manipulated or they can't. Can't have it both ways. And yet Americans believe both stories coming from the same party and accept that it must be true.
tathougies 6y ago
Fascism is quite literally the merger of corporations with government (see corporatism [1]). In non-Nazi Fascist countries, such as proto-fascist pre-Anschluss Austria and Mussolini's Italy, the government was organized such that individuals and 'stakeholders' (i.e., companies, unions, and guilds) were given a say in government. In interviews with NYT journalists, this is the eventual structure that even Adolf Hitler also had in mind after the revolution was through [3]. Yesterday, we saw the American corporate board take actions that used to be the sole purview of a government. They did this at a time while the current administration (the one they harmed) pursues anti-trust lawsuits against them. This is a clear blurring in the distinction between the incoming administration's government and corporations. The incoming administration would do best to criticize the banning of their opposition. Not only would it make them look like they're taking the 'higher road', it would put them in line with other major liberal western powers, such as Germany, France, etc, all of whom have condemned what happened yesterday. However, instead, we have seen the embrace of these corporate actions by the new congress. It is especially concerning when the incoming president took more donations than his opposition from large corporations [2]. This is very concerning, and -- unlike the constant doom-predictions of 'fasciscm' of the last four years, which have been made without any attention paid to the history of fascism -- brings us closer to actual fascism -- that is to say, the merger of corporations, unions, and government -- than any action of the last four years. That is not to say we're Nazi Germany by any means (for that we'd have to start injecting the language of racial superiority into the picture), but I just want to point this out. The number of people cheering uncritically (especially those in government) is incredibly concerning. References: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Corporatist_economic_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Corporatist_economic_s... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/joe-biden-donors.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/joe-biden-don... [3] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/07/10/119446081.html?pageNumber=6 https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/07/10/119... Exact quote since it's behind a paywall: "Asked if, after four years or twenty years of dictator ship, he foresaw the resumption of parliamentary government in Germany, the Chancellor [Hitler] paused: 'Yes,' he said finally, 'but with a Parliament of another and better type, in which representation will be on a technical basis. Such a development is the Italian corporative State.' (this is what I reference above on Wikipedia)
s9w 6y ago
This site is lost in fanfiction and manipulated by at least two organized discords. Come to /pol/ like everyone who values their rights.
drKarl 6y ago
The justification given in many cases of deplatforming is spread of conspiracy theories. While I agree most of them are baseless and ridiculous, I would say, let them expose themselves as ridiculous on their own merits. If you say, but they're a lie!! Then I don't understand why the same criteria is not used with religion, any religion (they're all equally ridiculous and lies, and pry on the vulnerable to extract their money), and other baseless superstition (tarot, astrology, etc). Imagine in the year 2300, 95% of the population is atheist and they deplatform anyone talking about religion because they're spreading dangerous lies. Imagine if on the year 1400 there was internet, and they would deplatform any atheist debunking religion as spreading dangerous lies. You can find examples in the political realm, imagine in Nazi Germany, or in Stalin Russia, that they would deplatform anyone spreading ideas not aligned with the regime. As you said, "I don't agree with what you said, but I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It."
loopz 6y ago
Words have consequences and it should not be up to others to pick up the rubble of your insurrection.
- techsin101 6y ago
  slippery slope that encompasses everything
  - loopz 6y ago
    It is not the only slippery slope though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Karunamon 6y ago

At the risk of coming off like I'm unloading on you personally (I'm not, but your post serves a point): I am sick of reading this. Everybody already knows this, at least the "everybody" that posts on HN and I'd wager a good chunk of the rest of the country. Anyone saying "free speech" is not necessarily referring to the first amendment of the constitution. Can we please, please stop parroting this "well ackchually" correction around as if it contributes in any meaningful way to any discussion? It isn't an interesting observation anymore, if it ever was, and it certainly won't be interesting the next thousand times its made. Implying conflation of the first amendment with the principle it protects is at best a thought-terminating cliché, at worst intentional bad faith. At least on tech boards. YMMV on Facebook with your relatives. In response to the edit above, which was a stealth edit instead of a reply for some reason: Yes, you have repeated the exact same song and dance I complain about here. You have added nothing to the discussion that we haven't already heard hundreds of times here and elsewhere. The discussion is about "should", not "is". We all know what the law "is".

shripadk 6y ago
And it is even more infuriating when it is the first amendment of the United States of America that is quoted as a definition for free speech. What free speech means in America is not the same as what free speech means in a European, African or Asian country. Every country defines free speech in their own ways. To always quote the first amendment as if the law applies to everyone in the World is seriously problematic. USA is not the World. The World is not USA. It is high time we get out of this mentality.
onion2k 6y ago
Claiming that the person making an argument has conflated the first amendment with the principle it protects is at best a thought-terminating cliché, at best intentional bad faith. Had the author of this Ask HN framed his question more honestly, and said something like "Should private companies be able to refuse to publish what I want to say?" they'd get very few responses saying no. But that doesn't serve their narrative, so they framed the question as one about the right to speak at all, rather than the right to be published by a specific private business. If anyone is posting in bad faith its the author of this Ask HN.

myWindoonn 6y ago
Exactly. It's so unbelievable that people don't realize that the USA has been a fascist police state since the days of slave patrols allying with banks and sheriffs, just like today's police allying with chambers of commerce and police unions. By focusing so much on which party the fascists belong to, and ignoring the bigger pattern of corporate money flowing into a multitude of different politicians, we're missing out on structural improvements that could actually make a difference in how free the typical person gets to be. It seems like everybody is thinking that things have changed when they are still the same. Disappointing!
- myWindoonn 6y ago
  Precisely. It's unbearable to think that the USA has been building a corporatist empire over the past century and change, built upon the backs of abused laborers and assassinated politicians. By constantly propping up banana republics and dictators, and funding neocolonial industrialization projects in developing nations, the USA crushes citizen-driven attempts at socialism and humanism. Horrific!
  - myWindoonn 6y ago
    Indubitably. It's hilarious and saddening to realize that startup culture contributes to rising corporatism and capitalism, by focusing on the production of new entrepreneurs and businesses rather than the investment of wealth into the laboring people who produced it. By positioning itself as a politically neutral group, YC is able to use HN as a magnet to polarize unwitting programmers into believing in a meritocracy where they are better than other people, and foster a culture of contributing to corporations. Abusive!
    - tathougies 6y ago
      I'm unsure if you think that I'm supposed to disagree with you. I really don't. YC is incredibly toxic. I let the scales fall off my eyes on that one. When I first graduated university and started reading hacker news, I had a dream to build a business with YC. I no longer have any interest in doing business with them (would rather bootstrap myself), and only remain on here because of the interesting tech articles. VC as it is today is absolutely toxic.